Notes of a sermon preached by the Rev, C. E. Darwent in Union Church on Sunday, Sept. 15.
Text: Acts V. 42. "And every day in the temple and at home, they ceased not to teach and to preach Jesus as the Christ."
The apostles had just been legally warned not to preach any more. The rulers would have ended the matter summarily if they had dared, by executing them; but fear of the people led them to let them off with a caution and this is the result; '"'they ceased not" to preach. They were never at rest. That hanging of their Master on the cross and His rising from the dead acted as terrific dynamic on the apostles. They covered all that was known of Asia. Thomas is said to have founded a church in India, Paul showed an energy in travel that must have made the commercial travellers of the time green with envy. The known world had at all events an opportunity of hearing the Gospel in the life time of the first apostles of Jesus. It was a marvellous feat of endurance, determination, of physical and moral courage. No one can deny that. It was not the apostles only, but all the first converts " c 'd not to teach and preach" it. There is no record of the introduetion of the Gospel into Britain, but. all the chances are that some merchant from Gaul, the modern France, brought it with him on one of his summer business expeditions. Business men then spread the Gospel; if they did that now missionaries would hardly be needed.
So then, let us first dwell on the fact that is not so frequently thought of as it deserves. That there is nothing that has been so prolific in activity, in movement, in persistent! daring, in adventure as the Gospel of the death and suffering of Jesus Christ for the sin of the world. Let us dwell on that and the reason for it, It is remarkable. Reading the pathetic story of his betrayal after the Last Supper together with His disciples, His scourging and crowning with thorns, His bearing His own cross to the gruesome hill of Calvary, one would think that the appropriate spirit of the Chri would be one of quietism, meditation, such as we feel in the shadow of the grave when we have suffered the loss of the very dearest to us. There have been Christians who have taken this to be the Chri spirit. And there is a quiet side to Christianity. "Peace perfect peace " has its place in the Christian life. But Christianity the religion of paradoxes. It unites every kind of opposite as no other faith does. So you have only to open your Christian history, to find that the quietest people have been the greatest fighters, Take the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.